UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called Monday for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza, where the 101-day war between Israel and Hamas has left more than 24,000 dead according to the Palestinian Islamist movement. , leading the region into a spiral of violence.
After the announcement of this heavy human toll, Hamas reported on Monday the death of two Israeli hostages. To do this, he broadcast a video where we see a young woman – also a hostage and visibly under pressure – announcing the deaths.
“They were killed in Zionist bombings on Gaza,” the armed wing of Hamas said in a statement. She declared on Sunday evening, at the end of a day of mobilization in Israel in support of the hostages, that many of them had “probably been killed recently”, placing “full responsibility” on the Israeli authorities.
“Hamas has been hit hard” and “the only card it has left to play is the heartstrings of Israeli society, through psychological abuse” on families, lambasted Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for which only “military pressure” will make it possible to save the hostages.
While no de-escalation of hostilities is in sight, Antonio Guterres launched a new call for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”.
“We continue to call for rapid, safe, unimpeded, extensive and continuous humanitarian access in and through Gaza,” the UN Secretary-General told reporters, adding that “nothing can justify the collective punishment inflicted to the Palestinian people.”
New Houthi attack
The war was sparked by an unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7 in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people on the Israeli side, the majority civilians killed the same day, according to a AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
Some 250 people were then taken hostage, and 132 are still in Gaza, of whom at least 25 were killed, according to recent estimates by Israeli authorities. Around a hundred were released during a truce at the end of November.
In the Gaza Strip, women, children and adolescents make up the majority of the more than 24,000 people killed by Israeli bombings and military operations, according to the Health Ministry of the Hamas movement, in power in Gaza.
In the context of violence generated by this conflict, a woman was killed and at least 13 people injured at midday, in a car attack in Ra’anana, a suburb of Tel Aviv, said the Israeli police. said it had arrested two Palestinian suspects. Two young French people are among the injured, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Off the coast of Yemen, an American cargo ship was hit on Monday in the Gulf of Aden by a missile from the Houthis, who had attacked an American destroyer the day before according to the American army.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, these Yemeni rebels, supported by Iran, have launched a campaign of attacks in the Red Sea against merchant ships believed to be linked to Israel, saying they are acting in solidarity with the Palestinians.
“Risks of famine and epidemics”
On the ground, the Israeli army is now focusing its strikes on the south of the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of Gazans have flocked fleeing the fighting further north.
The 2.4 million inhabitants of this small, overpopulated and besieged territory, 1.9 million of whom have had to leave their homes according to the UN, lack everything. The cold further complicates their daily survival.
In Rafah, near the Egyptian border, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people are crowded together, smoke and an acrid smell emanate from the fire that Ismaïl Nabhane’s family lit with firewood and plastic in front of his shelter of Fortune.
“Children are constantly sick. They keep coughing and getting colds, their clothes are not thick enough to warm them,” his wife, Raidah Aouad, describes to AFP.
In a joint statement, UNICEF, the World Food Program and the World Health Organization warned on Monday of a “risk of famine” and “epidemics of deadly diseases”.
New diplomatic effort
The war is also exacerbating tensions on the Israeli-Lebanese border, where exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israeli forces are now daily.
On Sunday, the pro-Iranian Islamist movement said it had carried out six attacks on Israeli soil, including one on a village which, according to the Israeli army, killed two civilians, a mother and son.
On Monday, Iran for its part called on the United States and the United Kingdom to “immediately stop the war” against Yemen, after the strikes carried out Friday and Saturday by Washington and London against the Houthis, who did not nothing stops the attacks of the latter.
In the occupied West Bank, another area of tension, three Palestinians were killed Monday in clashes with Israeli forces, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. More than 340 Palestinians have died in violence there since October 7, according to Palestinian authorities.
After a tour by the head of American diplomacy, international efforts are continuing to avoid a regional conflagration. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong has announced a trip this week to Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates.